Russia’s young elite turn against war

London, March 12 (UNI) The children of some of Russia’s biggest oligarchs are beginning to speak out against President Vladmir Putin’s war on Ukraine. ABC News reported that these pampered children, from the families of some of the most powerful players in Russia, normally spend their time far away from the world of geopolitics. But as the West sanctions Russia and moves against the economic assets of Russian oligarchs stashed away abroad, their lives are getting derailed. ABC said that even models and descendants of Russian politicians are cautiously voicing support for Ukraine. One of the oligarchs to be hit by Western sanctions is Roman Abramovich, a former governor and long-time Putin ally who made his fortune in oil and aluminium after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His 26-year-old daughter Sofia, a professional equestrian and graduate of the University of London, shared an Instagram post with the caption last week: “The biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin’s propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin.” Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov’s daughter Elizaveta Peskova, 24, who spends time in Paris, made a simple but powerful statement: HET BONHE. This means “no to war”. The post was later deleted. But her anti-war message was shared by thousands of Russians in the days following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including members of an influential group known as ‘the Family’, ABC said. Boris Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Yumasheva posted her own anti-war message on Instagram and shared a video from an anti-war protest in London. Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of former St Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and Russian Senator Lyudmilla Narusova, was a reality TV host and socialite in the early 2000s. She also ran against Putin in the presidential contest in 2018. She told her Instagram followers last week she’d had to temporarily suspend her regular videos over concerns she could be targeted by Russian propaganda laws. “The world is on the brink of disaster,” she wrote. ABC pointed out that many of Russia’s richest heirs and heiresses live outside the motherland. But European governments are being encouraged to send the children of suspected oligarchs home. “For those whose parents are targeted by US, European or UK sanctions, their lifestyles are on the line,” the report said. Several British MPs are calling on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to kick out the children of oligarchs who are being educated at the UK’s elite institutions. “Putin’s princelings are enjoying education in the finest places of our country while he destroys Ukrainian schools,” Tom Tugendhat, chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told the UK Daily Mail.